What Happened on November 16th in History
30 historical events on this date
Qantas, Australia's national airline, is founded as Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services Limited.
Qantas Airways Limited, doing business as QANTAS or Qantas, is the flag carrier of Australia, and the largest airline by fleet size, international flights, and international destinations in Oceania....
The United States and the Soviet Union establish formal diplomatic relations.
The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until its dissolution in 1991. It was the world's...
LSD is first synthesized by Albert Hofmann from ergotamine at the Sandoz Laboratories in Basel.
Lysergic acid diethylamide, commonly known as LSD and by the nicknames acid and Lucy, is a semisynthetic hallucinogenic drug derived from ergot, known for its potent psychological effects and...
World War II: In response to the leveling of Coventry by the German Luftwaffe two days before, the Royal Air Force bombs Hamburg.
World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and aircraft played major...
The Holocaust: In occupied Poland, the Nazis close off the Warsaw Ghetto from the outside world.
The Holocaust, known in Hebrew as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered around six million...
New York City's "Mad Bomber" George Metesky places his first bomb at a Manhattan office building used by Consolidated Edison.
George Peter Metesky, better known as the Mad Bomber, was an American electrician and mechanic who terrorized New York City for 16 years in the 1940s and 1950s with explosives that he planted in...
World War II: In support of the Battle of Hürtgen Forest, the town of Düren is destroyed by Allied aircraft.
The Battle of Hürtgen Forest was a series of battles fought from 19 September to 16 December 1944, between American and German forces on the Western Front during World War II, in the Hürtgen Forest,...
The Jussi Awards, the Finnish film award ceremony, is held for the first time at Restaurant Adlon in Helsinki.
The Jussi Awards are Finland's premier film industry prizes, awarded annually to recognize the achievements of directors, actors, and writers.
UNESCO is founded.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and security through international...
National Airlines Flight 967 explodes in mid-air over the Gulf of Mexico, killing all 42 aboard.
National Airlines Flight 967, registration N4891C, was a Douglas DC-7B aircraft that disappeared over the Gulf of Mexico en route from Tampa, Florida, to New Orleans, Louisiana, on November 16,...
Aeroflot Flight 315 crashes on approach to Lviv Airport, killing all 40 people on board.
Aeroflot Flight 315 was a regularly scheduled passenger flight operated by Aeroflot from Vnukovo International Airport in Moscow to Lviv Airport in Lviv, Ukraine. On 16 November 1959, the Antonov...
Venera program: The Soviet Union launches the Venera 3 space probe toward Venus, which will be the first spacecraft to reach the surface of another planet.
The Venera program was a series of space probes developed by the Soviet Union between 1961 and 1984 to gather information about the planet Venus. A total of eighteen probes were sent, including two...
The Temptations release their Greatest Hits album, which goes on to be the Billboard Year-End R&B album of 1967.
The Temptations are an American vocal group formed in Detroit, Michigan, in 1961 as The Elgins, known for their string of successful singles and albums with Motown from the 1960s to the mid-1970s....
Aeroflot Flight 2230 crashes near Koltsovo Airport, killing 107.
Aeroflot Flight 2230 was a Soviet domestic passenger flight from Yekaterinburg to Tashkent. On 16 November 1967, the Ilyushin Il-18 aircraft serving the flight crashed after takeoff, killing all 107...
Skylab program: NASA launches Skylab 4 with a crew of three astronauts from Cape Canaveral, Florida for an 84-day mission.
Skylab was the United States' first space station, launched by NASA, occupied for about 24 weeks between May 1973 and February 1974. It was operated by three trios of astronaut crews: Skylab 2,...
U.S. president Richard Nixon signs the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act into law, authorizing the construction of the Alaska Pipeline.
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 until his resignation in 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he represented California in both houses of the...
The Arecibo message is broadcast from Puerto Rico.
The Arecibo message is an interstellar radio message carrying basic information about humanity and Earth that was sent to the globular cluster Messier 13 (M13) in 1974. It was meant as a...
The first line of Bucharest Metro (Line M1) is opened from Timpuri Noi to Semănătoarea in Bucharest, Romania.
The Bucharest Metro is an underground rapid transit system that serves Bucharest, the capital of Romania. It first opened for service on 16 November 1979. The network is run by Metrorex. One of two...
Aeroflot Flight 3603 crashes during landing at Norilsk Airport, killing 99.
Aeroflot Flight 3603 was a Tupolev Tu-154 operating a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Krasnoyarsk to Noril'sk, both in the Soviet Union, that crashed while attempting to land on 17 November...
The Supreme Soviet of the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic declares that Estonia is "sovereign" but stops short of declaring independence.
The Supreme Soviet was the common name for the highest organs of state authority of the Soviet socialist republics (SSR) in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). These soviets were modeled...
In the first open election in more than a decade, voters in Pakistan elect populist candidate Benazir Bhutto to be Prime Minister of Pakistan.
Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the second-largest Muslim...
El Salvadoran army troops kill six Jesuit priests and two others at Jose Simeon Canas University.
During the Salvadoran Civil War, on 16 November 1989, Salvadoran Army soldiers killed six Jesuits and two women, the caretaker's wife and daughter, at their residence on the campus of Central...
Pop group Milli Vanilli are stripped of their Grammy Award because the duo did not sing at all on the Girl You Know It's True album. Session musicians had provided all the vocals.
Pop music, or simply pop, is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom. During the 1950s and 1960s, pop music...
The Hoxne Hoard is discovered by metal detectorist Eric Lawes in Hoxne, Suffolk.
The Hoxne Hoard is the largest hoard of late Roman silver and gold discovered in Britain, and the largest collection of gold and silver coins of the fourth and fifth centuries found anywhere within...
After nearly 18 years of incarceration, China releases Wei Jingsheng, a pro-democracy dissident, from jail for medical reasons.
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the second-most populous country after India, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, across an area of...
The first cases of the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak are traced to Foshan, Guangdong Province, China.
The 2002–2004 outbreak of SARS, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus, infected over 8,000 people from 30 countries and territories, and resulted in at least 774 deaths worldwide.
Half-Life 2 is released, a game winning 39 Game of the Year awards and being cited as one of the best games ever made.
Half-Life 2 is a 2004 first-person shooter (FPS) game developed and published by Valve Corporation. It was published for Windows on Valve's digital distribution service, Steam. Like the original...
Following a 31-year wait, Australia defeats Uruguay in a penalty shootout to qualify for the 2006 FIFA World Cup.
The Australia men's national soccer team represents Australia in international men's soccer. Officially nicknamed the Socceroos, the team is controlled by the governing body for soccer in Australia,...
Space Shuttle program: Space Shuttle Atlantis is launched on mission STS-129 to the International Space Station.
The Space Shuttle program was the fourth human spaceflight program carried out by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which accomplished routine transportation for...
Artemis Program: NASA launches Artemis 1 on the first flight of the Space Launch System, the start of the program's future missions to the moon.
The Artemis program is a Moon exploration program led by the United States' National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), aimed at returning humans to the Moon for the first time since the...